1. Field of the Invention
The subject invention relates generally to passive restraining devices for vehicle occupants, and more particularly to safety seat belts and harnesses having manually operable positioning, tensioning and releasing means.
2. Prior Art
The passive restraints in common use today generally employ a relatively narrow seat belt positioned across the wearer's lap. In some installations additional restraint is provided by means of chest straps and shoulder harnesses. These often become twisted or tend to slip to the floor or into crevices in the upholstery. Many of them are designed in such a way that they become binding and give the wearer the feeling of being trapped and unable to escape. Many members of the motoring public find such equipment annoying and uncomfortable, and therefore elect not to use it. Additionally, even when they are worn, the narrow belts and straps of some prior art restraints have been known to cause serious injury by concentrating the restraining force on critical parts of the wearer's body.
Various devices incorporating specialized straps, buckles, retractors, winding spools, inertial reels, and the like have been developed in an effort to overcome or at least minimize these and other problems associated with prior art restraints. Some of these are designed to operate in conjunction with the opening and closing of the vehicle door. Typical examples of such devices are illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,583,726, 3,727,944, 3,765,701, 3,850,446, 3,857,581, 3,865,397, 3,897,963, 4,053,175 and 4,124,224. While the use of the opening and closing of the vehicle door to position a seat belt or chest strap has certain advantages, the means used to accomplish this purpose suffer from a variety of deficiencies. The most serious of these are their potential for hazardous mechanical failure and their propensity to malfunction and leave the vehicle occupant either wholly uprotected with a slack seat belt or chest strap, or immobilized by an overly-tight belt or strap that cannot be released. These problems are generally attributable to the complexity of the structures required to make prior art safety restraints function "automatically." By and large such restraints have proved to be unsatisfactory, and there still remains an urgent need for a personal safety restraint assembly for vehicle occupants which is convenient, comfortable, reliable and acceptable to the motoring public. The object of the present invention is to satisfy this need.